From Passive Text to Active Agent: The Communicative Agency of Chatbots and Virtual Assistants in Everyday Interpersonal Communication

Abstract

From inactive text-processing systems, artificial intelligence (AI) technology's quick development has turned chatbots and virtual assistants into active communicative agents able to engage in daily interpersonal interaction. Modern AI-driven conversational systems such as chatbots, voice assistants, and generative AI platforms increasingly exhibit human-like interactional skills including empathy simulation, contextual understanding, customization, emotional sensitivity, and conversational continuity. The study examines the communicative agency of virtual assistants and chatbots inside digital interpersonal communication settings. The study synthesizes recent scholarly works gathered from peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and open-access academic databases published between 2020 and 2026 using a qualitative systematic literature review technique. The article looks at how artificial intelligence-mediated communication changes the way people think about social presence, interpersonal communication, trust development, emotional engagement, and human interaction in general. Research reveal that chatbots are now seen as socially interactive agents able to sway attitudes, actions, emotional attachment, and communication results rather than just as technological interfaces. Further, the study finds anthropomorphism, conversational intelligence, emotional responsiveness, social presence, and adaptive communication styles to be key components influencing the perceived communicative agency of artificial intelligence systems. Still, authenticity, trust, ethical manipulation, dependency, misinformation, and emotional displacement remain major obstacles in human-AI contact. The study comes to the conclusion that the communicative evolution of artificial intelligence technologies indicates a significant change from conventional computer-mediated communication to AI-mediated interpersonal communication whereby conversational agents increasingly assume participatory roles inside social relationships, consumer interaction, education, healthcare, and digital culture. To guarantee responsible implementation of conversational bots in daily life, the research advises building ethical communication frameworks and human-centred AI governance policies.